The younger brother prudently lapsed into entire silence,
and the couple soon reached home. Tom strolled
about the room, his lower lip hanging down, bestowing
glares of different intensity upon every individual
and object present, and even making a threatening motion
with his foot towards the baby, who had crawled about
the floor until it was weary and fretful and was uttering
plaintive cries from time to time. His mother
was out of the house somewhere, and the baby continued
to protest against its physical discomforts until Tom
indulged in a violent expletive, which had the effect
of temporarily silencing the child and causing it
to look up at him with wondering eyes. Tom returned
the infant’s stare for a moment or two, and then,
moved by some spirit which he was not able to identify,
he stooped and picked up the infant and sat down in
a chair. When his mother returned, she was so
astonished at what she saw that she hurried out of
the house, down to the shop, and dragged her husband
away and back to his home. When the door was
opened, Sam Kimper was almost paralyzed to see his
big son rocking the youngest member of the family to
and fro over the rough floor, and singing, in a hoarse
and apparently ecstatic voice,—­

“I’m Captain
Jinks of the Horse Marines.”

CHAPTER XIV.

“Well, doctor,” said Deacon Quickset to
his pastor one morning, “I hope you have persuaded
that wretched shoemaker to come into the ark of safety
and to lay hold of the horns of the altar.”

“My dear sir,” said Dr. Guide to his deacon,
“the conversation I had with that rather unusual
character has led me to believe that he is quite as
safe at present as any of the members of my own congregation.”

“Oh, doctor, doctor!” groaned the deacon,
“that will never do! What is the church
to come to if everybody is to be allowed to believe
just what he wants to, and stop just when he gets
ready, and not go any further unless he understands
everything before him? I don’t need to
tell you, a minister of the gospel and a doctor of
divinity, that we have to live by faith and not by
sight. I don’t have to go over all the
points of belief to a man of your character to show
you what a mistake you are making, thinking that way
about a poor common fellow that’s only got one
idea in his head,—­one that might be shaken
out of it very easily.”

“Deacon,” said the minister, “I
am strongly of the impression that any belief of any
member of my congregation could be as easily shaken
as the one article of faith to which that poor fellow
has bound himself. I don’t propose to disturb
his mind any further. ‘Milk for babes,’
you know the apostle says, ‘and strong meat
for men.’ After he has proved himself to
be equal to meat, there will be ample time to experiment
with some of the dry bones which you seem anxious that
I should force upon him.”